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So, it seems that surviving in Ghana without the luxury of carbohydrate foods is actually possible. Who would have thought?

To say that it was easy would be a lie – not only because we spent the majority of the week with very little energy but because of the sheer inconvenience it caused to have a no carb diet in a country that is so dependent on the food group.

This was especially difficult at lunch times. Our fellow team mates would stroll around the corner to the rice man and tuck in to their fried rice and chicken while myself and Zoe would be roaming the streets looking for something we were actually allowed to eat. The majority of lunch times would consist of meat on a stick and some fruit (followed by a look of utter confusion by any Ghanaian that happened to walked by).

lunch time delights

On a more positive note – being unable to eat carbohydrates meant that we became a lot more adventurous with our meals at home. Our weekly market shop actually had some order to it and we even made a meal plan for the week.

Week #5 here at Team Tamale has been declared the week of the challenges. Each team member has been assigned a challenge they must complete/stick to within the week and there will be forfeits for those who fail to succeed in their challenge.

Challenge #1 – ‘No carbs in Tamale’

One of the main questions asked by friends and family about our time here in Tamale is ‘What’s the food like?’. To say that Ghanaian people love eating carbohydrate foods would be a massive understatement; carbohydrates make up about 80% of every meal. Whether it be fried rice, plain rice, jollof rice, banku, fufu, TZ or kenkey – the carb is always the most important part of the meal.

So, myself and Zoe decided there was a little incentive here to run a ‘no carbs in Tamale’ challenge. For one week (and one week only!) we will be eating no carbohydrate foods to see if it is actually possible to survive in a country that is so dependent on the food category and we will be blogging about it at the end of the week to update everyone on our progress.

Just to give you a sneak peak of what our week will entail; Monday morning commenced with ‘egg in a bag’. A more traditional Ghanaian breakfast from a food stall would be an omelette between two thick slices of bread served to you in a plastic carrier bag to take back to the office… but without the bread for us ‘no carbers’ it was literally just egg in a bag.